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Derailment
He's not sure what wakes him. It could be any number of things. It could be the light on his face, the air moving over him, the shift of cloth against skin where before it had just been the cool of the sheets and the heat of two bodies. It could be the hard ground under his back, which would also explain the aches in him as consciousness drifts closer. He's gone soft, he thinks sometimes, fallen out of the habit of sleeping well on the ground, lost in the embrace of Tom's big bed. But he still roughs it sometimes, so at first the fact that he's clearly outside doesn't sound any alarms.
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
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Once I used to talk like that.
His hand is already moving towards his hip and his gun, though he knows it might be the second stupidest thing he's ever done, but there's a soft touch on his arm and he swallows it all back, feeling it pressing against the inside of his skin like magma against a rock dome, still threatening to blast free at any time.
It's been three years since he's killed anyone. He doesn't want to pick up the habit again. But now he's pretty damn sure he could.
He digs in his pocket for a second or two and brings up five rounds, tossing them at the man with a single careless gesture. Careless, though it's all an act. Once he was a good actor, too.
"We'll take a night," he says coldly. "Together." And let them think what they want. He reaches into his other pocket and tosses down three more rounds, leaning in closer and dropping his voice into a smooth growl. "We aren't here. And if anyone fucking touches him, if anyone looks at him funny, you got a whole fucking world of trouble."
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Teeth bared, there's something incredibly stupid surging up on the tip of my tongue, but thankfully, Tom's there and Mike jumps in before I can step forward and cheerfully claw the fucker's eyes out.
Not too long ago, I probably would've let it happen, but there's no fuckin' way I'm letting him touch me.
Stepping back between the two of them, I don't say a word, but the look I give them all is startlingly clear -- I'm spoken for. Back the fuck off.
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"Yang's an old friend," Tom said, holding out a hand until the man grudgingly dropped a key into it. "Tell him we're here and maybe we'll forget that you forgot your manners."
Tom dismissed the guards easily enough, eyes sliding over them like they weren't there, gaze lingering momentarily on the dealer, just enough to let the man know that he'd been sighted and cataloged and that it would a bad thing if he ever found himself at their mercy, and waved Neil and Mike ahead of him down the narrow foot path that ran between the train tracks and the wall of the tunnel. Car after car were stalled on the tracks, lights and sounds drifting from the windows as they passed. Children crying, women moaning, men's voiced pitched like a fever dream...
And the walked down into the dark, single file, and the daylight faded behind them.
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He walked into this place, once upon a time. Voluntarily. It almost seems beyond belief.
"Here?" he asks when they reach an empty car, glancing over to check the number scrawled on the key in Tom's hand. He looks back at Neil, feeling like he should apologize, though he's not sure for what.
"It's shitty but it's marginally safer down here. Yang has an interest in keeping his... guests from killing each other."
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"Jesus," I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face and peeking inside the train car. Rolling one shoulder in a careless shrug, I mutter, "It'll do."
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The bench seating had been ripped out of the car years ago, leaving a few poles and empty brackets on the floors and walls. There was an attempt at a mattress against the far wall, a basin of dingy water in a corner. Most of the windows had been blocked out with black paint.
It was muggy and close and awful, but with the door shut, Tom sighed a soft sigh of relief.
"Sorry about -" he said, gesturing abortively in the direction of the tunnel. He gave Neil a pained look. The Realm, the destruction, all the piss and fear and dark, closed spaces.
"I'm just...sorry."
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He would have picked somewhere better if there was anywhere. But if Tom is right, if they can just make it through a couple of days.
Tom has to be right. There's no other option.
"We're here," he says flatly, arms resting on his knees. "Nothing to do about it now."
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But finally, I sink down onto the mattress beside Mike, my shoulder brushing his, and after a long moment of hesitation, I let my head tip over on his shoulder, just taking that little bit of comfort while about thousand things clang noisily inside my brain.
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"We got this," he said, and he believed it. Right up until Tuesday morning, he refused to be afraid. He dropped into a low crouch in front of them, blinking up at them with wide eyes, slipping a hand onto each of their thighs. "It's different, this time."
A lot of the rules felt like they'd changed.
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So it's good that he doesn't have to.
"I know," he whispers. It's different. He slides an arm around Neil's shoulders and looks up at Tom. He doesn't have to hide from him, and that's one thing that's different. He doesn't have to hide anything.
"I fucking..." He laughs roughly. "I wish Florence was here."
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"I mean, somewhere 'round here, she should be..." She hasn't been on the island for a while, and I don't want to think about the possibility that people don't go home after they leave here. Even if home's a fuckin' awful place like this, at least it's not a pitch black fuckin' void of knowin' fuck all.
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He rubbed his hand back across his mouth, rolling to his feet with a thoughtful look. "We should've checked the trunk for her pack," he muttered. "She's never gone long when she leaves it behind."
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He looks up at Tom again, and there's a strength in him that he doesn't remember seeing before. It must have been there before now but he's only now noticing it, a kind of warm determination behind Tom's blue-green eyes. He'd always been so afraid of what the Realm would make him into. But the Island must have changed him too.
Changed all of them.
"We should find some food," he says. "We can't afford to weaken."
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Holding out a hand to help Mike to his feet, I say, "Let's go, old man."
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But they couldn't do that. It always crept in around the edges.
"We could do the Night Market," Tom said, thinking of the complexes of old warehouses just north of the mucky, putrid bed of the Chicago River. Under a few of the huge roofs, everything was on sale - food and booze and sex and skin. A shit hole, slimy little festival of corrupted morals, but more safe than any of their other options, and cheap enough, too.
"We're gonna have to stay close to one another."
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"If we're gonna go, we should go now." His hand moves instinctively to his gun, just verifying that it's there and in order. "The later it gets, the fucking scarier it gets." He starts toward the car door, shoulders hunched. Where the fuck is a pair of ruby slippers when you need them?